


The Farther You Run

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Preseries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-04
Updated: 2007-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-12 19:14:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's twenty-first birthday started out pretty darned good before it went all to hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Farther You Run

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: 1992 and 2000  
> Disclaimer: The Winchesters belong to Eric Kripke, not to me. Malcolm and Amy, however, are mine. That's how things go sometimes.
> 
> a/n: sargraf and innie_darling went above and beyond, not only beta-reading but helping me figure this story out. Thanks, guys. Beta readers are love. The title is by October Project.

_Prologue - Winter, 1992_

It got to be too much after a while, everyone eating cheese and crackers, giving him sideways looks, murmuring words of pity. Some of them talked to him and said nice things about his parents and told him how brave he was.

He didn't feel brave, but he was too old to run off and hide in a closet in one of the mansion's many rooms, or under the dining room table, and cry.

So he sat in the armchair in the big living room by the fire, watching the snow falling outside, the conversation of the people in dark clothing a soft hum in his ears. He tried closing his eyes very tightly.

Maybe if he did that and counted to one thousand and then opened them his parents would return, laughing at the joke they'd played.

While he kept his eyes closed and counted, he overheard talk about arrangements, something about a trust fund, a will. He could keep his home and he'd get a living allowance and an education; someone said "boarding school." He'd get all the money when he was eighteen. That seemed like a million miles away.

Nine hundred and ninety-nine...Against his closed lids he saw glass shining on the carpet, many tiny pieces, sharp under his feet, felt the cold wind coming in through the window, saw his mother's hand curled limply, his father lying too still on his side.

One thousand.

He opened his eyes.

Still the same people, with their pearls and silk ties and diamonds gleaming in the firelight against black or brown cloth, no Mom and Dad.

Others talked, over by the grand piano, about the marks on the bodies, the amount of blood, about how strange it was, about the footprints on the snow, _some kind of wild animal, perhaps, d'you think? But what would break through a window? Maybe it was a wolf. That's ridiculous. I heard about the police report. Tracks like hooves. And those marks on the bodies._

It got to be too much. He couldn't breathe anymore.

So he left the room, quietly, calmly, to avoid drawing attention to himself, as if he were just leaving to go to the bathroom. His wool coat was in the back hall closet. He put that on, and gloves, and a wool hat, and went outside.

The cold was an escape all in itself, the snow clean and smooth, stretching across the lawn until it met the woods. It was quiet, too, no murmuring voices anymore. Although the snow under the moonlight made him think of glass again.

By now someone, an aunt or an uncle, might have noticed he was gone so if he wanted his solitude, he'd have to move off the back patio. He'd leave tracks, of course, but once he got into the woods they'd have a harder time following him, and in the woods the moonlight would be caught by the trees and wouldn't reflect off the snow and make him think of broken glass anymore.

The woods were his. He'd been playing there since he was a baby and his nanny would take him out and watch him. Then later he was allowed to go alone and got to know every rock, there were even some trees that he could find just by letting his footsteps lead automatically.

Usually he had them to himself.

But not tonight.

He stopped when he saw them: two figures moving swiftly through the trees. One was big and broad, wearing a brown leather jacket, bear-like. The other was a kid like him, maybe a little older.

They had shotguns. This scared him and he stepped behind a thick tree. Maybe they were poachers. There were no trespassing signs all along the edge of his parents' property but that wouldn't keep someone out if they wanted to go hunting.

Maybe he should go back to the house. Or maybe he should see what they were up to. This was his land now, wasn't it? He had to protect it. After he figured out who these intruders were, then he could go back and tell a grownup.

The snow was soft under his shoes here, not hard like it was out on the open lawn, mixed with dead leaves and twigs. He was careful not to step too hard, to make no noise when he walked.

A shadow moved to his left. The two hunters were ahead of him, still moving through the trees.

A voice called his name. It sounded a lot like his father.

He turned all the way around once, staring into the moonlit shadows under the trees.

The voice called again. He began to run towards it, ducking low-hanging branches, forgetting to go silently.

Ahead of him there was flicker of movement, the flash of a tail like a lion's.

He blinked and rubbed at his eyes, but he hadn't imagined it. A ripple of pale brown fur followed, along with a gleam of teeth whiter than the moon.

Now he looked down and saw the tracks in the snow that weren't made by boots or shoes. They seemed to be hoof prints, only not round and smooth like a horse's. They were too sharp, with a split in the middle.

A sharp grunt-snarl made his scalp prickle. His head went up sharply as he took several steps back until he came up against a boulder. He knew exactly where he was, exactly how far he was from the lawn and the house. The creek was just down the rise to the right.

A pair of black, round eyes shone at him, not sparkling and sharp like glass, but smooth and round like pebbles. _I see you_ , they said with hunger.

The thing was turning, and the thing was huge, bigger than the Irish wolfhound that belonged to Dad's business partner. It moved smoothly, muscles rippling. Its teeth went almost all the way around its head, from pointed ear to pointed ear.

It _smiled_ at him.

He backed up more but there was no place left to back up to. The boulder was unyielding against his back. Maybe he could climb on top of it. His feet frantically scrambled against the snow and twigs while he forgot not to make a sound, how to use the woods in silence.

The creature growled again and began to advance.

He opened his mouth and tried to scream but the sound stuck. The haunches tensed, ready to spring.

There was a flash and a bang above him. The thing yelped instead of springing, skidded to one side, howled in a way that was like a person screaming.

Another flash and a bang came from ahead of him. Now the thing was down, sides heaving, something dark staining the fur.

He turned and looked up at the top of the boulder.

"Shit. What the hell are you doing out here?" The boy on the boulder lowered his shotgun. He acted as if that thing bleeding out on the snow was no big deal, as if it were a deer.

"Dean. Be quiet." Now the bear-like man was headed towards him. He paused and nudged the creature with his boot, keeping his shotgun aimed at it, and the creature only flopped limply. "What's your name?"

But his teeth were chattering too hard to answer. He stared at the man, at the clean-shaven face and the eyes that were sad but frightening. Meanwhile, the boy jumped down off the boulder and now he could see the spiky hair, high-top sneakers, and skull design on his t-shirt, just visible beneath his unzipped parka.

"He's too scared to talk." The boy looked at him, jerked his head towards the carcass. "It's dead now. See?"

"Where do you live? We can take you home," the man said, his voice gentle.

But he wasn't listening to them. He was staring at the hooves of the creature, at the sharp edges, and remembering murmured conversations and pieces of glass on the rug mixed with blood.

It was too much. All of it.

He ran, ignoring their shouts after him. He ran until his lungs hurt with the cold and he was gasping so hard he sounded like that kid in his class who had asthma. Down to the creek and along it, taking the long way home so they couldn't follow him back to the house. He knew the woods backwards and forwards.

But when he broke through the trees back onto the lawn, he knew for a fact: he'd never go back into the woods again.

* * *

 _January, 2000_

Dean's twenty-first birthday started out pretty darned good before it went all to hell.

To start things off right, there were Sam's gifts: a new knife and an offer to play designated driver while Dean got properly and legally drunk in public. There was a bar just outside of town rumored to feature local metal bands that were destined for greatness once people learned of their existence. Dean figured he could use a night of drinking, music, flirting, and maybe, if things worked out, a cute waitress in a back room.

"Wherever you end up," Sam said, glancing up from his chemistry textbook. "You just call me when you're ready to come home. Any time."

"And that would be you driving _my car_?"

"C'mon, Dean, I'm offering to do something nice for you here."

"Or maybe you want an excuse to drive the Impala."

"Fine. Just forget it." Sam's face tightened.

" _Any_ time? You mean, if I decide I'm done having fun at three a.m., that's when you'll haul your sorry ass out of bed?"

"I'll be up late studying anyway." Sam turned back to his book, bangs falling forward to shield his face. He popped the cap of a highlighter and neatly marked a line of text in day-glo green.

All of Sam's pens were smooth and un-chewed, unlike Dean's. The last time Dean had handed Sam a pen, Sam had made a retching noise, then held the pen up, pointing to the teeth marks with a look of disgust on his face.

Dean had never used highlighters in high school. He memorized most of the crap in the textbooks, just enough so he'd get a C, maybe a B minus. Good enough so that no teacher would ask to speak to him, or to Dad, or nag him about studying harder, and not so good that he'd draw any of the other kind of attention to himself and be asked to join a club or compete or go into an accelerated program. Advanced placement classes would definitely conflict with training, hunting, and looking after his brother.

Sam had been studying a lot lately, even for Sam. Even Dad had started excusing him from hunts so he could do schoolwork. He'd been moody, too--well, moodier than usual, with a fuse like a firecracker.

He flopped onto the couch next to Sam, deliberately bouncing so Sam's hand jiggled and a green line streaked across the page. "Sounds like a plan. Thanks, geek boy." He nudged Sam's elbow with his.

"You're welcome." Sam eyed the messy green mark and sighed.

"You make a scratch on that car and I'll pound you."

"No kidding. I know, Dean."

"You boys doing anything special for Dean's birthday tonight?" Dad walked in from the kitchen.

"Maybe," Dean said, and gave Sam a _look_ : _don't tell Dad_. Sam gave him a _look_ right back: _what, you think I'm that stupid?_

Dad sat down in the beat-up wooden chair. All the furniture had come with the apartment. They always had to rent furnished, and sometimes the furnishings were nicer than other times. In this place the couch was covered in some scratchy checked fabric that looked like it dated to before Dean was born. It smelled a little odd, like a cat had peed all over it, and some of padding was worn away so if you sat wrong, the springs dug into the back of your thigh.

They'd been to that town in upstate New York before, years ago, hunting the same thing. Four deaths so far this time around. Two of the bodies had been left mutilated. With the others there were only traces.

It must have been hungry.

The sheriff's office and local wildlife chapter were fluttering helplessly. He and Dad had been out every night, sometimes together, sometimes apart, looking for the creature. It left prints, but the tracks always stopped at a road. It would have been easier with more snow to leave a trail. Still, they'd get lucky eventually and even if they hadn't gotten it yet, at least there had been no more deaths.

"Good," said Dad, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "I'm glad you boys are making plans together, I want Dean to have fun. But before you go two run off and do whatever you're cooking up, mind coming somewhere with me first? For a little while? Then I have to drive over to Bolton, there's a ghost tearing up a bed and breakfast."

Sam dropped his highlighter and Dean sat up. It wasn't like Dad to make a big thing about birthdays. Certainly not to do a celebration before a hunt. Oh, he always did something--he'd whisper in the ear of a waitress at a diner, smile, and then there might be a slice of cake with a candle stuck in it. There were often gifts: paperback books for Sam, cassettes for Dean, a new sweater or warm socks. Hell, for Dean's eighteenth birthday Dad had given him the _car_. But even that had been done with little ceremony. Dad had tossed him the keys, put his hand on Dean's shoulder, and said "Take good care of her or I'll tear you a new one."

* * *

All three of them squeezed into the front cab of the truck. Dad made a stop along the way at a convenience store with a liquor license. He came back with a six-pack of beer, a six-pack of Coke, two bags of tortilla chips, and a jar of extra hot salsa.

"What gives?" Dean asked, pawing through the bags while Dad pulled back out onto the highway.

"I just bought you your first legal drink." He smiled at the dark road ahead of them. "The rest...you'll see."

It was upstate New York in January, but there hadn't been any snow in about a week. The pine trees were still covered in a fine coating of white, but the road was mostly clear.

When the truck finally stopped again and they climbed out, their breaths rose in white clouds that made Dean think of tiny ghosts. There was an open picnic area, and beyond that thick woods. On the other side of the gravel parking lot, through a thin line of trees, Dean saw the glimmer of water.

They sat on the cold, hard ground at the edge of the lake. Dad popped open a beer and handed it to Dean, then snagged one for himself. When Sam made a noise of protest, Dad popped open a can of soda and handed to him.

"Hey, how come I don't get beer? It's not like I haven't had it before." Sam wriggled on the ground, trying to get more comfortable. These days he seemed to be all legs, arms, elbows, and hair. Dean wondered how he even walked without tripping over himself, but Sam was an effective backup on hunts. He'd be willing to bet if Sam had been with him on that wraith hunt last month, it wouldn't have gotten away.

Dad took a swallow of beer. "Dean doesn't get to do too many things the legal way. Let's give him this one. He's twenty-one today. You aren't."

"Oh," said Sam. He raised his soda can. "Happy birthday, Dean."

They just sat drinking for a while. The only sounds were the lapping of the water, the lonely humming of the wind across the surface of the lake, and the crinkle of the chip bags and crunching noises as they ate the chips.

"Okay, tell me that one." Dad pointed at the sky with the mouth of his beer bottle.

Dean snorted. "Too easy. Orion."

It was obvious why Dad had picked the spot. There were no houses nearby, no towns, no lights to dim the view of the night sky.

"And that one?"

"Ursa Major," Sam said instantly. "Dad, you're going to have to try harder than that to stump us."

"Not trying to stump you."

Sam got wired on sugar and caffeine and Dean and Dad got a light buzz from having two beers each. They stayed for hours after that, moving around occasionally to keep from getting too cold, pointing out constellations and hiking along the shoreline.

When they got back to the truck, Dad put his hand warm against the back of Dean's head for a moment, and his other hand on Sam's shoulder.

Yeah, his twenty-first birthday definitely started out good.

* * *

The air in the bar was murky with smoke, crowded, noisy, and filled with the soul-deep thud of music. That was the way Dean liked it -- it was easier to blend and be just another guy in the crowd. No one would remember him later, outside of maybe the bartender and hopefully, if he played things right, that waitress with her red curls, short black skirt, and white shirt opened the right number of buttons.

He caught her eye as the band started a shaky cover of "Shout at the Devil." Dean grinned, and she grinned back.

So far, so good.

Someone jostled into him. "I need to talk to you," a girl shouted at him over the din of the music.

Dean looked down at her. She rested the fingers of one well-manicured hand against his lower arm. Her blue eyes were older than her face, and sadder too, as if she had the soul of a forty-year-old. The rest of her was a little young -- still on the safe side of jail bait, though. She must have had to use a fake i.d. just to get into the place. Sleek, straight brown hair hung down to the middle of her back. She wore jeans, a red blouse, and what looked like two hundred dollar boots, real leather. That chain around her neck, he was willing to bet, was real gold. Surprisingly, a silver pentagram dangled from it against her skin, which was lightly tanned, as if she hadn't been trapped in Bumfuck, New York all winter.

In other words, expensive, but one-hundred-percent authentic, from her hair color down to her nice, round, small breasts.

She seemed to be in distress, and he couldn't turn down a damsel in distress, could he?

"No problem," he said. "It's a little...noisy in here," he said, and then made like someone had knocked into him so he could move a little closer to her. Not too close, not enough to seem pushy.

"The next room's a little quieter," she shouted back.

The back room had a pool table and photographs of people, famous or otherwise, who'd been to the bar. It was crowded and the music was still a loud throb but conversation was at least possible.

She pointed at an empty table.

Dean hadn't forgotten about the adorable red-head, but...this girl was right there, beckoning.

He sat, figuring he could talk to the waitress later.

"What's your name?" she said. As she leaned forward, her blouse allowed him a tantalizing glimpse of a bra strap and her authentic breasts.

"Dean Rochester."

"Amy Anderson. I have a favor to ask."

"Well, Amy, I'm good at granting favors." He grinned and took another swallow of beer, his fourth of the evening if you counted the two he'd had with Dad and Sam.

"My boyfriend needs to talk with you."

Okay. That was different.

"Honey, that sounds intriguing but I don't..."

"He says he knows you. Well, your Dad, mostly, but he remembers you, too. From a long time ago."

Out in the main room, the band started another song. Dean wrapped his hands around his beer glass.

"How does he know us?"

"He says he saw you hunting." A crease of anxiety formed in the middle of her forehead. "He needs to ask you something."

Dean decided that until he knew more about these people, he'd better play dumb. "I don't follow. He saw me and my Dad...hunting? Sweetheart, we hunt all the time. It's a family hobby. Deer, quail, that sort of thing. It's kind of relaxing, being out in the woods and..."

"Not that kind of hunting." She twined her fingers nervously in the gold chain. The pentagram swung below her chin, sending glints of light over her throat. "He wants to talk to you about _the other_ kind of hunting."

"Really, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"He needs your help. There's this thing...it's been killing people..."

Maybe that's all this was, a legitimate call for help. That's what they did, after all, helped people. Dad had come to this one-horse town in the first place on the trail of a killer.

But how did this Amy girl's boyfriend know what they did? It was one of Dad's many lessons. Operate under the radar. Go in, make the kill, get out, leave no trace, don't give your real name, don't get friendly enough that anyone would remember you later. It helped lower the chances of ever being noticed by an official who might want to see licenses for guns, or question why someone would be carrying around that much weaponry.

Not to mention, hunting didn't exactly pay well and it was sometimes necessary to cheat the system to make ends meet.

"I really don't know what you're talking about."

It was better to be on the safe side. He felt a pang of regret. She was really pretty. The fact that she already had a boyfriend was a bit of a disappointment but it wasn't as if that had stopped him before.

Amy let out a sigh. "Oh. Okay. Our mistake, I guess." A troubled expression flickered at the back of the clear blue eyes as she bit her lip and looked down at the beer list on the paper placemat on the table. "See you." She stood up.

"Yeah."

She paused and half-smiled down at him. "Hey. Let me buy you a beer, for the trouble?"

"Okay."

As she walked out to the other room, Dean noticed he wasn't the only male in the room to watch her go. She moved gracefully, not with the restrained power of a superb athlete, but like someone used to being outdoors and active.

The band finished their set. Amy came back and handed Dean a beer. "Thanks anyway," she said.

"You don't have to rush off."

His statement seemed to throw her. "Oh, no, I...I have to go. My boyfriend..."

Dean raised his glass. "See you around."

She left him. Dean took a long swallow, slumped a little in his chair, and thought if he sat there long enough the red-head would probably come by. His evening could continue as originally planned.

It made him nervous, though, people that he didn't know knowing who his father was. He fingered the cell phone in the back pocket of his jeans, but didn't take it out.

The group playing pool finished and Dean was just starting to eye the room looking for an easy mark when he started to feel odd, his arms suddenly too heavy. He yawned.

In the silence that fell after the last song, Dean clutched the edge of the table, hard, struggling to keep his eyes open.

Two figures approached him, doubling and focusing; one of them resolved into Amy before she slid out of focus again.

Her voice sounded very far away at the end of a dark tunnel as she leaned over him and said, "I'm very sorry about this."

* * *

When the history text open in front of him blurred, Sam leaned back in his chair and pressed his palms against his eyes. Then he lowered his hands and glanced at his watch.

One in the morning.

The only light on in the entire apartment was the overhead light in the kitchen. It hadn't bothered Sam all evening, but now his arms prickled. He turned his head fast, looking at the shadows.

Sam picked up the cell phone and called Dean again.

It rang twice before the voice mail picked up. Just like it had the other four times he'd already tried that evening.

He got up and opened the fridge, staring at the slim pickings inside. There was probably nothing to worry about. Dean was probably having a blast, and had turned off his cell phone so his baby brother couldn't bug him. Sam reached in for another can of soda, and flopped back down in his seat again. He scraped back the chair so he could stretch his legs out to their full length, then pulled the textbook down into his lap, propping it against the table edge as he kept reading.

At one-thirty, he tried again. Then he thought about calling Dad, but if Dad found out Sam had summoned him back from a hunt for a supposed emergency, and then it turned out it was only Dean hooking up with a girl and turning off his cell phone, there'd be hell to pay, and then some.

Sam rotated his shoulders and got back to reading American history. It was Dean's birthday, he should have fun, and their agreement said any time Dean wanted, no matter how late. It could be dawn before Dean Winchester was ready to stop celebrating.

There was a Latin text on the kitchen table among the other papers, something Dad wanted him to translate by the day after tomorrow. Sam thought it would take him maybe two hours, tops, to do. It didn't look too complicated. But it would mean time spent away from studying for his test. Plus he had two papers to write by Friday.

Sometimes Dad acted like Sam was going to be doing this for the rest of his life, as if there was no question. Maybe it didn't feel any different for kids in normal families who didn't want to go into the family business one day, although in those cases he was pretty sure it was the oldest kid who was expected to stay on. With Dad, it seemed like nothing short of both of them would be enough.

Never mind that Sam worked best as back-up, lookout, and research guy, hating the hunts themselves. He didn't like crawling around condemned, cobweb-choked houses, or crouching for hours in an empty warehouse waiting for a monster to show, or having to concentrate on incantations ranging from ancient Greek to Sumerian while Dad and Dean were slammed against the wall by some angry spirit.

He wasn't going to do this for the rest of his life. Sam ignored the Latin text. Instead he put down the history book and pulled a folded brochure out of one of his spiral notebooks.

The brochure was his secret. There were others like it wedged under his mattress, and when they finally packed up to leave this apartment, he'd pack them quick, at the bottom of his duffel so Dean wouldn't see.

He stared at it, with its pretty pictures of trees, old buildings, smiling people, dignified statues, without really seeing, until he checked his watch again.

Two-thirty in the morning.

"Fuck you, Dean," Sam said out loud to the silent kitchen, to the shadows that hovered at the edge of his vision. "I hope you're having a great time and you have the worst hangover in the history of hangovers tomorrow."

* * *

When he woke up, the light was blinding. He shut his eyes and waited. When he opened his eyes again, the light didn't seem quite so bright. In fact, it appeared to be a perfectly ordinary, if fancy, standing brass lamp with an ivory-colored shade.

A shadow moved across the light and Dean saw a skinny kid with a wiry build and black hair, perhaps a year or two younger than he was. There was something familiar about him but Dean couldn't figure out why.

"Who the fuck are you?" Dean sat up and instantly regretted it. He grabbed the back of the couch he'd been lying on to keep the room from spinning.

"Malcolm Branch," the kid said.

Amy stood nearby with a worried look on her face. Dean thought she probably made that worried look a lot.

"The boyfriend?" Dean asked her sardonically.

She nodded.

"You're in my home," Malcolm said politely. "And I want to apologize for drugging you but you..."

"Jesus Christ." A quick glance down reassured him that he still had all his clothes on. Dean managed to get to his feet, then swayed a bit. Malcolm reached out to steady him and Dean shoved him away. "You fucking _drugged_ me?"

His birthday now officially sucked, in, like, twelve states.

Amy looked like she might cry. "I'm sorry," she said. "It was just a sedative."

"Oh, that makes it okay then! That's swell. I'm leaving now." He started for what looked like a door--or would, once his vision started to behave.

"Dean, I have to talk to you."

"Tough shit." Any doubts he'd had back in the bar about turning Amy away, maybe turning his back on someone in danger, were burned to ash now by his headache.

They hadn't tried to grab him but he had to stifle a twinge of panic anyway. This room with its antiques and heavy dark furnishings were too rich for his blood and made him feel suffocated.

"But it's important."

"Next time, try asking."

"I did. You refused," Malcolm said.

He barked a laugh. "Damn straight."

"I don't blame you for being suspicious, but I thought I'd try that before..."

"You can't just drug people and drag them to your home because they wouldn't _talk_ to you!"

"I know. I know." Malcolm rubbed his hands over his face, making his skin redden temporarily. "Listen, Dean, it's really important."

"You bet." He kept walking.

"But it's..."

But Dean was through the door, headed down the hall and for crying out loud, how long did it go on anyway? Plush carpeting covered the floors and nice wallpaper, shiny varnish on the furniture and oil paintings on the walls. It was a really, really long hallway, and he still didn't feel so hot.

He reached for his cell phone but it was gone. Dean began to walk faster. Now that he knew he didn't have his cell, he felt a small twitch of panic. This wasn't something straightforward; Malcolm didn't seem like he was possessed or that the human guise hid something else. He was human and while Dean could probably knock him flat with one finger, he also might be crazy and who knew what he was capable of?

"Dean..." Malcolm said, like Dean was the one off his rocker and Malcolm was trying to get him to be reasonable.

"Fuck off," Dean said, repressing the urge to grab Malcolm and slam his face repeatedly against the wall.

He turned a corner and saw another short hallway, with wide double doors leading into a dining room. There were more doors opposite that. "And give me back my phone." He looked for another phone but there didn't seem to be one in the hallway. Probably he should just get out of there without stopping to find a land line.

"I know what you're here to hunt."

"Congratulations, you win a trip to Hawaii." Dean kept walking.

"It's a leucrota. You and your Dad killed one near here about eight years ago. In my woods, actually."

Moonlight and snow, larger prey than Dean had ever been asked to help hunt before, shotgun blasts, scared eyes staring up at him. He stopped and turned back to Malcolm.

"You remember now?" said Malcolm softly. "I'd be dead if it weren't for you."

Dean looked down at his hands, which had curled into fists. He made his fingers unclench. "So you repay me by kidnapping me and dragging me out to your estate?" He said, with less sarcasm than he could have used.

"I want your help."

"With what?"

"My parents..." Malcolm rubbed his hand over his face and Amy stepped quickly over to his side. "One of the killings that led your father here the last time...that was my parents."

From somewhere deep in the house, a grandfather clock began to chime. It was nearly four.

They'd gone hunting in Malcolm's woods because the house was the site of the last kill, that was all. Neither he nor Dad had ever connected the boy with the police reports although maybe they should have, since there was mention that the dead couple had a child.

Just another hunt, just another kill, unusual only because some local kid had wandered into the middle of it and had to be saved at the last minute.

"What do you _want_?" Dean said slowly.

"I want to kill this one myself," Malcolm said. "I want you to show me how to hunt it, so I can kill it."

* * *

Sam woke up with his face pressed against the pages of his chem notebook and the cold winter dawn coming in through the kitchen window.

"Dean?" He sat up with a start. Papers fluttered to the floor.

He stumbled into the living room and saw that the sofa hadn't been unfolded into the sofa bed where Dean slept. Sam stumbled down the hall and looked in his own room, and in Dad's, but no sleepy, hungover Dean.

When he tried Dean's cell one more time, he closed his eyes and muttered "please pick up please please," but he wasn't surprised when he got the voicemail again.

The apartment was cold, had been cold all night, but only then did Sam start to shiver. He went into the bathroom, splashed water on his face, vaguely noticing the smudge of ink on his cheek.

Then he called his father.

* * *

"Probably got smashed partying all night," Dad said calmly. "Wound up in some girl's bed. He'll be waking up about now with a brass band going in his head. Would serve him right."

"But Dad, what if he..."

"Give him a little more time. Call me back in an hour if you don't hear from him."

"Yes, sir," said Sam.

His father hung up.

Sam got dressed in long underwear, jeans, sweater, parka, and heavy boots. He had no idea where he'd have to go that day, or into what kind of conditions.

After a moment of deliberation, Sam shoved a handgun into the waistband of his jeans, nestled against the small of his back, under his parka. Then he got one of his father's shotguns, loaded with iron rounds. He put additional shells into his pockets, as well as additional rounds for the handgun.

He was still shivering when he got into the Impala and started the engine. Dean had left a cassette in the deck; Metallica's "The Unforgiven" blared mournfully from the speakers at him until Sam popped the cassette out. The heat started blowing on his legs as he reached back to put the shotgun on the floor in the back, then tugged the ratty wool army blanket over it.

Sam had forgotten the name of the bar and the location. Dean had told him on his way out for the night and Sam had scribbled it in his chem notebook -- which was still sitting on the kitchen table.

For about twenty minutes, Sam followed random roads, watching the early morning sun grow brighter and larger through the trees, the light pale as it slanted across the frosted fields and woods. Sam turned the heat up more and tried to remember.

Hell-something...no, that wasn't it. Something to do with the devil?...The Devil's Lair, that was it. Just off Bridge Road, second stoplight.

The place was a simple one-story building. A big sign stood by the side of the road with elaborate lettering and an unimaginative picture of a red-skinned devil with horns and a forked tail leering at oncoming traffic.

As Sam walked in, a guy in a flannel shirt and jeans set down the crate of bottles he'd been carrying.

He chuckled. "They've got root beer at the mini-mart down the road, kid."

"I'm not here for a drink." Sam dug into the pocket of his parka and pulled out a snapshot of Dean he'd taken about a month ago with a disposable camera. They'd been bored, killing time while waiting for Dad, who was getting some supplies, so Sam had gone into the drugstore and bought a camera, much to Dean's annoyance.

He'd wanted some pictures of his brother that weren't cracked, faded polaroids from the 80's. Sam couldn't tell anyone, even himself, why, but he knew it felt like hoarding for an uncertain future. It had something to do with the brochure tucked into his notebook.

"Might have seen him." The guy frowned as he scratched at his neatly trimmed beard.

"His name is Dean Win...Rochester. It was his twenty-first birthday last night and he was here alone."

"Alone? No, can't be him then."

"But you saw someone that looked like him?"

The guy nodded, handing the picture back to Sam. "Don't think he holds his liquor too well. He got a little smashed. Some friends of his helped him out of here."

Sam swallowed, his throat going dry. "Friends? Can you describe them? Do you know who they are?"

"Sorry, I've only been in town a month or so. But I've seen the kid before, he comes in here a lot with his girl. If Bernadette were in you could ask her but look, I'm the only one here this early. Local boy, dark hair, skinny, comes from money--I think his folks own a pile of land around here."

Sam slammed his gloved hands down on the bar. "Where?"

"Dunno." The guy shrugged. "You're welcome!" he shouted as Sam ran from the bar back out into the cold morning, the door banging closed behind him.

* * *

The offices in the municipal services building opened early. Sam held the cup of hot chocolate and it warmed his hands through the dual layer of frayed wool gloves. He watched as a woman with white hair and a sturdy build unlocked the door.

"You need something, sweetie?" she asked.

Sam pushed himself away from the car and walked over to her. "Yeah. It's for a class project. I need to look at county maps."

The woman tutted over him in a concerned way, pulling out the maps he needed and leaving him at a table with them. "It's okay, you can finish your hot chocolate, just don't spill or it'll be my job."

She looked like she might want to pat him on the head and Sam automatically tensed, but she only walked away, humming to herself, and sat down in front of her computer.

He tugged off his gloves but left his parka on. In between sips of hot chocolate, Sam studied the maps. There were five land lots large enough to seem promising. He jotted down their numbers, then walked over to the woman's desk.

"Um, hi," he said, and smiled, trying to look as lost as possible.

"Hello, dear. All finished?"

"Almost. I, uh, need to look up the addresses of these land lots."

"Check the computer there." She pointed with her pen. "Do you know how?"

"I think I can figure it out." He wrinkled up his forehead, wondering if he was overdoing the confused innocent act. It's not like there was anything illegal about looking at land maps. The clerk seemed forthcoming with information. But watching Dean and Dad con people for so long made him feel like asking anyone official for anything on record could get you arrested if you sneezed wrong. "That one?"

"Yes, dear." She went back to her work. "Just let me know if you get stuck."

He found the information, thanked the clerk, and headed out to the first address.

* * *

Dean shoved through the door opposite the dining room, and found himself in a big kitchen with an island range. There were big windows over the double sink, and beyond that, a back door.

He could walk out, right now, and that would be that.

But he didn't.

"So, will you help me?" Malcolm said.

"Hunting isn't something you just wake up one morning and decide to do." Dean ignored the little voice in his head that said _isn't that what Dad did?_ "It's dangerous. We'll hunt the thing down and kill it. Just like we did last time."

"So you won't help me."

"That _is_ helping," said Dean.

"You don't understand." Amy moved forward, her fingers twining in the pentagram's chain again. "He was fine until you and your family got back into town."

"Amy, don't." Malcolm put out his hand.

"No. Malcolm, I don't think even you understand all of this. But I do." She turned back to Dean. "I think Malcolm had made himself forget that night until he saw the two of you. He told me about it once a few months after we met and hasn't mentioned it since. Then he saw you and your Dad coming out of the grocery store last week, and he started having nightmares --"

"Amy!" Malcolm protested. "C'mon, that's private."

"Do you want his help or not?" She turned back to Dean. "They started after he saw the two of you."

"That's a shame," Dean said sincerely. "But I'm not going to drag an amateur along on a hunt. We'll find the thing, we'll kill it, end of story. Trust me, Malcolm, my way is a lot faster than what you have in mind."

* * *

Sam pushed aside an evergreen branch and found a protective rune spray painted in black on the brick wall.

He'd parked the car half a mile down the road. Crouched by the wall, Sam fumbled with the buttons on the phone, clumsy with his gloves, and called his father.

"Dad! I think I found where Dean is."

"He hasn't checked in?" Sam heard worry buried in his father's voice this time.

"No, and I went to the bar where Dean said he'd be last night. The guy there said Dean got real drunk and had to be dragged out by some friends...but Dad, we don't know anybody here and Dean holds his liquor pretty well, you know he does."

"Where are you?"

"Twenty-two West Mountain Road. It's a big estate with a brick wall around it. You can't miss it. I'm going inside."

"No, you're not. You wait for me, son."

"But, Dad, he could be..."

"Samuel Winchester, you sit right where you are until I get there. I can be there in two hours."

"That might be too late, we don't know what..."

"You wait for me!"

Sam hung up.

Tucking the phone back into the pocket of his parka, Sam crawled over to the brick wall, carrying the shotgun in his right hand.

The estate was only the second place he'd driven out to. The first place had been a horse farm, nothing secretive-looking or odd about it except for a three-legged goat.

With this place, he'd stopped the car, gotten out, stared at the brick wall and the roof of the faux tudor-style mansion in the distance and it had just felt right. The rune had confirmed it. Sam figured whatever was going on, it had something to do with hunting. If it didn't, that frightened him even more. But that rune was a common protection sign, one that anybody who knew anything about the occult might use.

Sam cupped his left hand over his mouth and huffed on the wool a few times, then flexed his stiff fingers. His breath curled up whitely against the red brick of the wall and the green of the bushes. He squinted upwards against the cold winter sunlight. The wall was probably about eight feet. He could scale it, easy.

He threw the shotgun over first, and when he heard it land, he walked back a few yards, turned, and then ran. He leapt at the last second, and his gloved fingers just caught the edge of the top. Grunting, Sam swung his leg up, then shimmied until his other leg was up too so he was lying on top of the wall.

That made him a target for anyone watching, so he dropped down the other side as quick as he could. The landing jarred his bones from toes to ears. He'd have to ask Dean about a better way to do it.

Sam picked up the shotgun, then flipped it open to check the chamber.

If the crazy people who'd taken Dean didn't kill him first, Sam was fairly certain Dean and Dad would kill him later. He could already hear the lecture about going into an unknown situation alone.

Running in a crouch, Sam made his way across the dead, dry grass of the lawn which in summer he had no doubt would be lush, green, and immaculate. The driveway ended in a circle in front of the house, complete with a painted metal footman holding up a lantern.

There wasn't anything about the mansion that looked out of the ordinary, except for those runes on the wall. But once again, the air itself made his hair prickle. It was almost like a scent.

Sam stopped thinking about it. His nose began to drip from the cold and he sniffed hard. He reached the side of the house and crouched by the south wall, blowing on his hands again, the shotgun leaning against his shoulder. A plane roared overhead, a lonely sound in the quiet.

He craned his head up to see inside and caught a glimpse of a big dining room with somber paintings on the walls and antique furniture in perfect condition. No lights were on, but daylight flooded in. He ducked down and crawled along the wall, around the corner, and saw what he needed: a patio with french doors. Sam carefully leaned the shotgun up against the dark bricks and pulled off a glove with his teeth before he removed the thin metal pick from his back pocket.

With the cold numbing his fingers, Sam knelt in front of the door and put the pick into the lock, trying to remember how Dean had taught him. Different locks had different feels. Find each pin, don't rush it, listen for the clicks. He pushed down on the handle and the door slowly opened inward across dark wood flooring and the tassels at the edge of a thick, expensive-looking rug. Sam put away the pick, took up the shotgun and gingerly stepped inside.

It was a library with floor-to-ceiling shelves. The books looked like the usual classics. There were double doors at one end and a small side door leading off down a long corridor. Sam decided to go through the side door.

As he got towards the end of the hall, he heard his brother's voice. He sagged against the wall in relief, surprised at the force of it. Then he shouldered the shotgun more firmly.

* * *

As Dean started towards the back door, where the brightness of sunlight beckoned him with freedom, Malcolm said, "Please."

"You can't hunt it. You think there's some kind of Hunting for Dummies manual in my back pocket? Stay inside, where it's safe. That sucker's going do--."

"Safe? Inside? Do you know how my parents died?" Malcolm's voice cracked. "They were in the library, sitting on the couch. I'd already gone to bed. That...that thing leapt through the window, broke the glass to attack them. I heard a noise, came downstairs. I found them there. It had already gone. What the hell does it want, anyway? Does it need to kill for food? It just left them after it killed them, there's no _way_ I scared it off, it would have gotten me too if it hadn't already left on its own."

"Leucrota hunt to eat. They also hunt for the joy of killing." Dean looked away, towards the window, but not before seeing Malcolm's eyes go wide, sad and scared -- as if he were a frightened twelve-year-old, that kid in the woods again. Sam sometimes got that look. "Creature like that isn't from the natural world," Dean snapped. "You won't see it on PBS."

"I put protection runes on the estate walls," Amy said suddenly, turning to Dean. "I'm a little bit into that kind of stuff. Do you think that will help?"

"I don't know," he said. "Not against a corporeal. No."

The door to the kitchen banged open and Sam walked in, shotgun to shoulder. "Get away from my brother!"

Malcolm startled, then grabbed Amy and shoved her behind him, his eyes moving from the barrel of the shotgun, to Sam, and back to the gun.

Sam actually looked fairly impressive, all angry eyes like he was about to go Dirty Harry on the whole room. Sam's trigger-hand was steady, but the other one look a little shaky. Still, Dean wondered when his baby brother had turned into such a badass.

"Hi, Sam." Dean stepped between Sam and Malcolm and Amy, so the barrel aimed at him. "You can stand down."

Lowering the gun, Sam made a puzzle-face at Dean. "Huh?"

Dean shrugged. "He's not armed. He's also few fries short of a Happy Meal. I've got it covered."

"Oh." Sam looked almost disappointed; Dean almost found it funny.

Amy let out a loud sigh of relief and Malcolm's shoulders slumped.

"Dean?" Sam said.

"Yeah?"

"What's going on?"

"It's a long story. Right now, I think I'd like to leave."

"Okay but...they drugged you!" Sam glared accusingly at Malcolm.

"I drugged him." Amy stepped between Sam and Malcolm. "Your brother will explain. It was stupid. I just...wanted to help Malcolm."

Sam opened his mouth in an indignant "O," about to speak, but Dean motioned at him to keep quiet, so Sam snapped his mouth shut. "Come on, Sam, we're leaving. No, wait. First I want my cell phone back."

"I'll get it," Amy murmured and hurried out of the kitchen.

"Why didn't you get here sooner?" Malcolm had his arms folded, as if he was trying to keep himself from flying apart. "Back then. Why didn't your Dad come to town sooner, why couldn't you have hunted and killed it before it killed my parents?"

There was no answer to that. It had been the death of Malcolm's parents that alerted Dad to the pattern and brought them there the first time.

Dean could just about feel Sam's stare burning into him but he couldn't look at Sam, not just then. Couldn't look at Malcolm, either, at the plea in his face, only he had to.

"We're going to kill this one. I promise," Dean said, fast and low.

Amy returned and handed Dean his cell and his jacket with a tiny, apologetic flicker of smile that Dean ignored.

Then Sam unlocked the back kitchen door, and they stepped out into the cold morning.

* * *

"So, you were worried, huh?"

With the sun shining, it wasn't so cold, but Dean walked fast, wanting to get off the property.

"Nah." Sam readjusted his grip on the shotgun.

"Walkin' in there, guns blazing, like the cavalry...my hero."

"Shut up. Dad's on his way."

"You called _Dad_?"

"You were missing. When I didn't hear from you at dawn, yeah, I thought something bad had happened to you."

Dean wasn't in the mood to tease, not really. He said nothing.

Beside him, Sam kicked at a tuft of dead grass. "Dad's worried. He wasn't so much earlier; he said you probably ended up with some chick." Sam paused, looking out at the distant line of trees, towards the woods. "I think he's going to be pissed at me."

"Why?"

"Because he told me not to go in and get you without him," said Sam, grimacing.

"Oh."

That was nothing new, Sam defying Dad. But Sam had been armed to the teeth; Dean knew Sam had no idea what he'd been walking into.

He should probably say _thanks_ or whatever.

Instead they walked to the car without talking, Sam easily matching Dean's stride.

* * *

Dad put the shotguns, ammunition, and hunting knives into an army duffel resting on the coffee table. "We can't lure it out with fresh meat," he said, sliding a drop-point hunting knife out of its sheath, eyeing the blade, then putting that away in the bag, too. "We might attract bears or coyotes. We'll start over, tracking it from the site of the last killing."

There'd been some haggling earlier. Dad said he thought maybe Dean wasn't up to hunting tonight. But Dean felt fine, only a small headache.

Dean checked his own new birthday knife. He'd spent the afternoon sleeping and then sharpening it. "Easy peasy," said Dean.

"These things are clever, Dean."

"I know."

"Hey."

Sam's voice came softly behind them from the door to the kitchen.

"Thought you were studying," Dad said, and got busy zipping up the duffel.

"I was," said Sam. "I was also reading through your notes on leucrota." Dean watched his brother's Adam's apple bob up and down as he swallowed. "I thought maybe you could use a third gun."

Hefting the duffel, Dad looked at Sam. "It's okay, son. I think Dean and I can manage."

"Yeah, I know you can, but..." Sam took a deep breath, then glanced at Dean with a look he couldn't read. "I want to come with you."

"First you're not into the hunting thing, now you're asking to go hunting?" Dad said.

His tone was dry, but Dean heard the tension in his voice, and moved between them. "Dad, you said yourself, these things are pretty clever. We could use Sam on this one."

"All right, then," said Dad, and dropped the duffel. "Get your gear. We roll in three minutes."

Sam was ready in two.

"These things can mimic human voices," Dad warned them, as they pulled on coats, hats, and gloves. "Whatever you do, don't call each other by name. If it overhears, it'll use that against us. Got it?"

"Yes, sir," Dean said, and Sam echoed.

* * *

The moon, waning from full through the bare branches of the trees, was enough that they didn't really need the flashlights. They brought them along anyway, tucked into the pockets of their coats. The thick woods were miles from anything; they were Dad's best guess as to where the critter might be using as home. Once they got out there, recent tracks in the thin coating of snow mingled with dirt confirmed it: cloven hoof prints leading from the road into the trees.

On Dad's signal, they spread out, Sam going to Dad's left, Dean to the right, and they began to advance parallel to each other. There was a small stream running through nearby, half-frozen with the water trickling in the quiet. Even mythological beasts had to drink.

Dad made another hand signal which meant it was time to widen their ground coverage. Dean felt uneasy letting Sam out of sight, but they needed to circle around the thing, then close in on it from three different directions.

There were too damned many shadows. The moonlight made everything look like more than what it was. Dean kept his eyes straining into the trees, looking for a flash of brown fur or a gleam of white teeth. He stepped over a fallen tree trunk, hollow with rot, and saw what he'd been looking for.

Dean hooted like an owl. After a moment he heard an answering hoot that sounded like his father's, and then more distantly, Sam's.

They'd both be circling wide now, then coming back in to form a triangle with the leucrota in the middle. It had worked for them dozens of times. He kept his eyes on the beast. It was drinking at the stream, the gleaming bone of its teeth ridge visible on either side of its face.

An owl hooted behind him.

That was wrong.

Dad and Sam should be ahead of him and to his left. He turned around, shotgun to shoulder, staring through the trees.

Maybe it was an actual owl.

Yeah, and tomorrow he'd have sex with Eliza Dushku.

Shit. There it was. A second leucrota, slowly moving through the trees, following Dean. Its mouth was open wide in that deathly imitation of a smile.

Shit. Not good. Shit. He risked a glance back over his shoulder and saw that the one drinking from the stream had vanished. Losing sight of the prey was number seventeen on John Winchester's List of Stupid Things to Do While Hunting.

Dean lined up his sights on the second beast but before he could shoot, Sam's voice shouted, "Dean, behind you!"

Before he could question if it was actually Sam or a leucrota imitating Sam, instinct took over and Dean swung the shotgun around. A gunshot crashed, not his, and the missing leucrota thudded heavily to the snow about six yards away from Dean.

But the fucker struggled to its feet, so Sam shot it again. Thick hides under that fur meant they wouldn't go down on the first shot and stay down.

Dean spun around and shot the other one, hitting it as it began its rush towards him. It yelped and staggered but didn't stop. His next shot caught it in the chest and it screamed as it fell.

They hurried towards each other, then stood back to back.

"There's three," Sam whispered, keeping his eyes sighted down the barrel of his shotgun. Even in the dim light, Dean saw how Sam's hair kept falling over his forehead, interfering with his line of vision. Sam jerked his head to move it out of the way. That did it, he was making the kid get a hair cut whether he wanted to or not.

"Dean!" Sam's voice shouted, from Dean's right.

"That's not me," the Sam right behind him said.

"No kidding! Where's Dad?"

"Over there," Sam nudged his arm.

A third leucrota broke cover and leapt at them, the single unbroken bone of its teeth gaping wide. Dad got it in one shot, hitting it in the head. Its shriek was eerily human and for a moment Dean was back in that other hunt when he was a kid.

"You boys okay?" Dad jogged towards them.

"Yeah. We got 'em," said Dean.

"Hell," said Dad, flicking on his flashlight. "Three. I should have realized."

"How?" Dean pulled out his own flashlight and switched it on, while his brother did the same. "Only one set of tracks led away from the farmhouse, and from the barn and the road where the other attacks took place."

"They are clever." Sam hunched deeper into his parka. "Never hunting together. Only one at a time. While the other two waited in the woods."

Dad shouldered his gun. "Well, the thing's done, that's what matters." He glanced down at the body of the leucrota Dean had shot, at the brown fur and red blood in the flashlight beam. "We'd better get to work getting rid of them. Ground's too hard to dig, but we should look for a gully, we can cover them up so no hikers come across them. Coyotes will take care of the rest."

"It was only one last time," Dean said as they began to walk, looking for a place to drop the carcasses.

"Far as we could tell."

They paused, their breaths hanging visible in the air. The stark trees branches looked like dark claw marks against the sky.

"But we didn't do it fast enough," Dean said, the words tumbling out quick, before he could stop them, like a river during a flood.

"What?" said Dad, and Sam tilted his head to one side.

Dean walked faster, looking away into the trees. "Last time, it killed a few people before we got wind of it. That kid Malcolm, he found his parents' bodies. It murdered them just for fun, not to eat. And this time the pack killed four people before we came to stop it. But it makes me wonder. Isn't there some way to do it faster? Get there sooner, before..."

He lowered the shotgun from being slung across his shoulder, dropping it down along his leg, and stared at the tip of the gun as it brushed a tangle of twigs and dead leaves. Sam's feet shuffled anxiously but Dad stood still.

"If you ever figure out how, let me know, okay?" said Dad, and Dean looked up and met his eyes.

There was no bitterness in Dad's voice, no reproach; as if he truly wished Dean would find out and then fill him in, because he'd misplaced the answer himself and was desperate to find it again.

* * *

They stopped once on the way home. Sam and Dad waited in the car while Dean made the long walk along the drive up to the front door.

A brass lion's head knocker stared back at Dean, who wondered how Malcolm could stand to have the thing on his door. After a long wait, while Dean jogged up and down in place to keep warm, Malcolm opened the door.

Dean stilled. "There were three this time. They're all dead. We checked as best we could and we don't think there are any more."

Malcolm hesitated, his hand holding the door. "But more might come," he said finally.

"Maybe. Anyway, I just wanted you to know. They're gone."

"Thanks," said Malcolm. He opened the door wider. "You want to come inside?"

"Ah, no, my dad and brother are waiting in the truck. Gotta go." Dean turned away. He didn't know what else to say and he wasn't even sure coming here again had been a good idea.

But maybe it had been. In the glow of the outside lamp by the door, the kid's eyes had finally looked peaceful.

* * *

 _Epilogue - Three days later_

It had started snowing that morning and hadn't let up all day. The white flakes stuck to the windows, muffling sounds, shrinking the entire world to the scratch of Sam's pencil on paper, the mutter of the eleven o'clock news on the TV in Dad's room, the uncomfortable lumps, growing familiar, of the couch.

Dean scanned the obits, hoping to find himself another solo hunt. Sam stretched out on the floor, studying. He'd been studying the past three days, in addition to doing some translation task or other for Dad.

"Dean?" Sam stopped writing. "Does it feel different, being twenty-one?"

Dean yawned and rubbed his eyes with his fingers. "Not really. Feels like twenty. Only difference is, now I don't have to use my fake I.D. to buy beer."

There was something stuck between two pages of Sam's spiral notebook. Eager for a distraction, Dean leaned over and reached for it. Sam slammed his palm down on the notebook, too late.

"What's this?" Dean opened up the brochure, looking at the photographs of smiling kids, grassy lawns, and grand buildings. His throat closed over. "Sam?"

Now Sam looked pale and panicked. He rolled over and sat up.

Quiet stretched between them. The TV shut off. Snow thumped as it fell from the roof to the ground.

"You're planning to apply?"

"Couple of different places," Sam said, as if he hadn't used his voice in years. "Stanford, Columbia, Brown. Depends what kind of scholarship I can get."

"Well, they'd be complete asshats not to take you." Dean handed the brochure back to Sam, who tucked it back into the spiral notebook. "College, huh. Lots of babes, parties..."

"I'm not going to college to party, Dean."

"Then what's the point? Have I taught you _nothing_?"

Sam shook his head and turned back to his textbook.

Dean went back to the obituaries, except he couldn't help stealing glances at the top of his little brother's head, bent over the book.

He imagined Sam not being within arm's reach anymore.

Dean decided that being twenty-one did feel different than twenty after all.

 

~END


End file.
